Death and a Baby
by Oceansurferg
Summary: A week after the Battle of Hogwarts, fifteen year old Abby Collins finds herself all alone, any person that she had relations with dead. She also finds herself a month pregnant with her dead boyfriend's child. This story can also be found on HPFF .
1. Prolouge: Alone

Death and a Baby

Prologue: Alone

_I'm all alone._

That thought sends shivers down my spine. I am all alone in this messed up world. _Well not completely alone. _I look down to my abdomen as I say this.

Eight months from now, I will have my own little being to care for. I hate the idea of this kind of responsibility. I am fifteen. I am too young to do this alone.

A week before this point I was fighting at Hogwarts against the death eaters, as were my best and only friend; Nina Thompson, my boyfriend; Alan Webber, my parents, and my older sister. I still go to school, as did my boyfriend, best friend, and sister. My parents lived in Hogsmead Village. All of them are now dead. I couldn't tell you who killed any of them except for Nina, who I saw mauled by Fenrir Greyback. The memory will haunt me forever.

I am currently residing in my parents' house. Nobody has come here to find me. I assume that the ministry officials who were identifying bodies believed me to be dead. With one's whole family dead, who would be dumb enough to not identify themselves? I suppose that's what makes this situation a slight blessing. I've been able to slip through the cracks of the system, able to live without shame of what has happened.

Now that I think on it, I will probably be found here when the ministry comes to take the house, since it has no owner. It's not as if I can really go anywhere else. I had no other friends than Nina, and Alan's parents had been killed by death eaters weeks prior to the battle or the, er, perhaps I'll just call it the _incident_. Either way, he'd been parentless for a couple months prior to the battle. And I'm knutless anyways, so I'd have no chance of getting my own place.

As you can probably tell at this point, I haven't told anyone. Who would I tell? The stray tabby cat that likes to eerily sit on garden walls and simply stare? Nina's grandfather, who would likely just yell at me and point me out of the house? Damn that conservative bat of a man. McGonagall?

Actually, that may have been the first good idea I've come up with. Surely she'll be named headmaster once the school reopens. And she's my head of house too! She'd be able to come up with some sort of idea.

I resolve to begin searching for her tomorrow. Tonight I need to eat. I didn't have lunch, as I threw up right when I began to get out the supplies to make a sandwich, and after that I'm not sure anyone else would eat too. I can't just think about myself when I want to starve, I need to think of my child.

The idea still feels strange on my tongue. I suppose it's natural. I found out four days ago. And even with unlimited time with only your own head for company things like this are hard to comprehend so quickly.

We used the spell, and the potion. How could this have happened? Does Merlin have some great plan for me? Get me pregnant, then take away my family and friends so that I'll learn some great lesson. It sounds like cheesy muggle movie!

Oh great. I've accidentally flung butter at my face! Merlin what next?

As I move to wipe away the butter I realize that my face is wet. I've been crying. I should be smarter than this. I'm a Ravenclaw.

This just makes me begin crying again.

And two hours later, with a whole box of macaroni and cheese devoured, and with me in a nightgown I am still crying.

Why me? Why _me_?

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**AN: This popped into my head reading _How to Save a Life _on HPFF, which you should definitely check out. Please review, as reviews earn you virtual cookies, and I hear mine are pretty good :)**

**Edited June 22nd 2009  
**


	2. Chapter 1: Home

Chapter One: Home

Today I am haunting the attic. The wizarding wireless said that houses of families wiped out are now being thoroughly investigated, so I expect that being up here is the safest place to be. Our attic is only noticeable if you are staring directly at the ceiling looking for the cut out lines that form a square that can be pushed open, and then viewed by climbing on a chair.

It took some effort to get up here. I don't think we've ever had a ladder, what with everything accessible via magic. I really have trouble understanding how muggles get along so well. I suppose it's the "can't miss what you've never had" theology. Anyways, I still have the trace, so magic was out of the question. With a lot of arm strength I'd have never guessed I possess I managed to get up.

Our attic isn't really an attic. It's more of a crawlspace. If I sit with my back straight, my head almost touches the ceiling. Of course, it doesn't mean that this place doesn't hold a lot of junk. The attic covers our whole house, which makes it ideal for all of our junk.

After a few hours in the attic I find myself deathly bored, and slowly growing hungry. I skipped breakfast. You know, these erratic eating habits probably aren't a good thing for the little being. I'll put off eating for a little longer though. It's a pain in the butt to get up here, and I'm still deathly afraid of being found.

I suppose at some point I'm going to run out of food. I know that food can't be magicked, no matter how hard I might have tried when I wanted a midnight snack at Hogwarts. This was before I knew where the kitchen is. Really, why am I putting off being found? I guess I'm just too irrational for my own good.

Out of boredom I decide to stick my hand into the nearest box and pull something out. I find myself holding a family album. It's very dusty. Who knows how long it's been up here.

I flip to the front page, and find myself looking at my dead family. It's a shock to see them so abruptly. I suppose I should have expected it. It _is _our family album. I swallow down my tears and look back at the picture.

My dad is holding my sister Cora in his arms. She keeps peeking up at him through her brown hair in wonder. I have a feeling I used to do that when I was young too. My dad was a pretty amazing person.

My dad keeps looking between my mother and my sister. Grinning ear to ear. My mother is laughing at something. My mother was always laughing; everything seemed to amaze her. The only time I'd ever not seen her laughing was when her sister died. I suppose that I still have my uncle and cousin as far as family goes. But my father always called them the wackys, and without her sister as an incentive we slowly grew out of contact with them. I see my mother stop laughing for a moment to tuck one of her blonde locks behind her ear. This prompts me to start playing with one of my own blonde locks.

I can remember always being told how extraordinarily like my mother I look. I have her hair, her face. I have my dad's stature though. And I also possess his eyes and nose. I'd gather that it's easier for people to see my mother in me though. I've been told that I have her spunk… Whatever that's supposed to mean.

At that thought I begin to chuckle. It's a bit watery. I couldn't hold down my tears while laughing.

I flip to the next picture and find just my mother this time. She's not laughing. Instead she has her hands on a slightly bulging belly looking amazed, with a tenderness in her eyes. There is a messy scrawl at the bottom

_Trisha three months pregnant with our second child._

To think that I'm going to be that big in two months time. To think that I was once to small. To think that I will not have a husband, or even a boyfriend to take pictures of me when I'm that big.

I think I should stop going along that train of thought. I don't need more worries.

I flip through the album, noting how my mom's belly is growing larger in every picture. Until I come to a picture that must have been taken just after my birth. My mother is sitting on a porch swing next to my dad and Cora. In her arms is an infant. _Me_.

I am suddenly taken out of my thoughts when I hear a door creak downstairs. I freeze, afraid to be found.

Surprisingly, I don't hear a loud assortment of ministry officials. Instead I hear the pitter patter of, Merlin, a cat? How on Earth did a _cat _get into this house? I locked the door, and all the windows. How long have I been up here? Did I take a nap, unaware of doing so, and wake up in a universe where cats can open locks? What kind of mad world _is _this?

I suddenly hear heavier footsteps, and the cat seems to be gone. My mind suddenly makes the jump to the most perfect conclusion. An animangus. An animangus would have been able to open the door and turn into a cat. But that makes this situation all the more serious. Someone must be looking for me. There is no other conclusion.

A square of the floor opens up, and I hear the most wonderful thing I've heard in a while.

"Miss Collins, if I were you I'd come down now. I'm old, and don't particularly enjoy crawling around attics."

Sweet mother of Merlin! It's McGonnagal.

"Y-yes professor," I studder.

I come down with a bit of a stagger, still shocked at McGonnagal's appearance.

"How did you find me?" I ask.

"Did you really believe that a fifteen year old is hard to find Miss Collins?" She replies tartly, "Now get your belongs together so that we can go. I think you'd prefer to stay at Hogwarts instead of this dingy place."

That last statement makes me feel a bit disgruntled. This is my home! My home is not dingy, it's just... I look around and realize that in my parents' absence I have made this house a mess. Oh great, how am I supposed to take care of a little being when I can't take care of myself?

I rush off and gather my possessions. I grabbed my trunk on the way out of the castle. You have to love reinforced wood, or my trunk would just be splinters, as Ravenclaw tower was dismantled by Giants. Wait a minute!

"McGonnagal, isn't Hogwarts almost entirely demolished?" I slide across the floor and ask.

"Not entirely Miss Collins" She tells me with an almost motherly look. "The Hufflepuff and Slytherin dorms are still around since they are underground." She smiles, "I'm sure that you'll find either of those dorms to be satisfactory."

You know, Nina, Alan, and I always had a theory about McGonnagal. She's very strict, and yet somehow she comes out with random spurts of motherly tenderness. We think that she probably has a child somewhere, perhaps several, and even a husband. It's very strange to think of Professors as having children. For some reason they seem to just spring old and wise from the ground, like they're potatoes. One can just look at a potato and you know that it's wise.

"Alright," I tell her after a little more packing, "I'm ready."

**AN: I've actually had this part written for a while, but I expected it to be much longer, so I kept writing, but then I realized that this was just where the chapter should end, so sorry on the delay. This has not been posted on HPFF yet due to the validators' summer break. Virtual Cookie if you can figure out who Abby's cousin is.**


	3. Chapter 2: Tears

Chapter Two: Tears

After the battle, I hadn't really had much patience to notice the little things about the castle. Who would after the realization that all of the people they love are dead? But as I look around now, the differences are startling.

I was aware that the Great Hall's ceiling was gone, as well as the wall behind the professors' table. However, I had not noticed how the floor had indents from the giants footsteps, or how there was a whole on the floor by where the house point should have been.

"Pass the potatoes?" a timid looking boy asks me.

My first night here, I met a few other students, who are boarding here for the summer. Kingsley Shacklebot, the Acting Minister of Magic until a proper election can occur, made an agreement with McGonagall so that we could stay here for the summer if no one comes to get us. It's mostly an easy out so that he doesn't have to worry about our lodgings for now. But, I cannot say that being amongst people in the same situation hasn't given us all a bit of comfort.

There are eleven of us in all boarding here. The majority are boys, with seven of them all together. Of the four girls, Lizzy and Elaine are twelve year old twins. They're sharing a room in Hufflepuff despite the fact that they could each have a room to themselves. The other girl is actually my roommate, Alex Russe.

My relationship with Alex before this point was that of cordial roommates. She had her friends, and I had Nina. We'd never talked more than banging of bathroom doors in the morning yelling "Hurry up!" However, now that we have this… unfortunateness in common with each other, we've come to find each other in front of the fire often. Not really talking, but a comfort for each other at the very least.

Before too long the food disappears, and McGonnagal shoos us off to our chosen dormitories. The majority of us are staying in the Hufflepuff dormitories, which have a homely feeling compared to the Slytherin dormitories, which are just plain creepy. And they wonder why so many Slytherins go bad.

I take my favorite armchair by the fire and lie across it, legs over one armrest, head on the other. I close my eyes and listen to the noises of my peers: chatter, and laughter, and squeals. I remember it wasn't like this my first night here. Whispers, and sobs, and sniffles had filled the air. It was reminiscent of my first day last year in some ways, and in others it was completely different.

"_How are we supposed to get through this year with the Carrows?" Nina whispered frenzied as we walked up to Ravenclaw tower._

_I thought of how there had been a group of students in our third year who had banded together against Umbridge, "Rebellion?"_

"_In our O.W.L. year? You've gone mad Abby! We'll have enough to deal with for studying let alone a rebellion."_

"_But wasn't Harry Potter a fifth year as well?" I argued, "And there are more important things than studying you know. The world isn't sunshine and daisies anymore. There's no point to our O.W.L.s if we're in a world run by Voldemort."_

"_But they're our O.W.L.s!" She argued, as if that was enough. Sometimes it was hard not to realize that I wasn't really Ravenclaw material. I didn't believe that academics were the purpose of life. I believed they were important of course, but my world did not revolve around them like so many others' did._

_When we made it to the common room we took seats by the window. Not really talking, just looking at the view. That's when we heard her cry._

"_What do you mean dead?" Samantha Boot cried out. "She just, she –" And then Samantha burst into sobs. I saw a blonde girl, who looked slightly older than me walk over and hug her, petting her hair, and leading her off to a corner. Conversation restarted hastily, but all the meanwhile Samantha's sobs could be heard._

"_That's just sad isn't it?" I heard a voice behind me. It was Alan._

"_Alan!" I jumped up and hugged him, "We missed you on the train and at the feast. I know that we aren't your closest friends, but one might have thought you'd have popped in for a chat." I scolded him._

"_I'll remember that next year," he whispered in my ear._

"_Oi! Lovebirds! Still here." Nina interrupted our moment._

"_Ah, Nina, Lovely as ever. How was your summer?" he asked cordially._

"_Well enough what with this war." She bit back._

"_Alright then, well I'll see you ladies in the morning." He hugged Nina, and pecked me on the cheek – causing me to blush furiously - before going up the stairs to his dormitory._

"_Tell me again why you two aren't going out." Nina enquired._

"_Well, it's, well, it's very complicated." I stuttered at her._

"_Sure it is." She rolled her eyes, "Well I think I'm done for the night as well, see you in the morning Abby."_

_And Nina left, leaving me to daydream about Alan for a bit, before I followed her up the stairs._

The memory makes me suddenly miss Alan very dearly, and my hands subconsciously make their way to my abdomen. At least I still have a little bit of him…

"Abby?" I hear Alex behind me.

"Yeah?" I croak.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine."

"Alright, but if you're not aware of it you should know you're crying."

My hands immediately spring up to my face, and what do you know, I _have_ been crying.

"Oh," I mumble, wiping away my tears, "thanks."

"No problem," she smiles sadly.

I turn my head back to the fire, hearing her sit down in the chair next to me. My mind wanders to nothing in particular.

"Abby, are we friends?" Alex asks suddenly, pulling me out of my reverie.

I consider her question. She's the only person I talk to, even if it's never more than a few words, but then that's just because we always find ourselves in front of the fire. But then friendship has its odd quirks. And I suppose that friendships can be silent, even if it's not anything like what I'm used to. And then without Nina or Alan, I find myself in desperate want of someone to truly call my friend. And I shouldn't knock an opportunity, should I?

"Yes, I think we are."

Neither of us say anything for a while, until a sudden wave of drowsiness falls over me.

"I'm going to go to bed. Night Alex." I turn towards the stairs.

"Good night."

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**AN1: I swear, I am a bad person for uploading this, because I can't upload it at HPFF at the moment, because the prologue is in the queue for editing, and I should really be posting concurrently on both websites. Anyways, I'm sorry this took so long, the honest truth is that I put off writing it, and then I wrote it a few days ago, but had trouble with the ending. This is the fourth ending I wrote, and I think that it does exactly what it needs to do.**

**AN2: So Abby has a friend. I wonder if she realizes the repercussions this will have. Hehe. Polling question, what do you think of her? Also, what do you think of Nina and Alan? Leave a review and tell me! :) **


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